Cape teams deal with ACL changes

The ACL high school league has a problem as painful as its namesake anterior cruciate ligament has been to so many standout athletes.

Don Sherlock

The ACL high school league has a problem as painful as its namesake anterior cruciate ligament has been to so many standout athletes.

The Atlantic Coast League will become a five-team league in the fall, presenting scheduling problems for four of the Cape schools – Dennis-Yarmouth, Falmouth, Nauset and Sandwich. Marshfield is the league’s fifth school.

With Plymouth North and Plymouth South departing for the Patriot League, the ACL sought new members for the past two years, but no schools answered the call.

D-Y, Sandwich and Falmouth all play Barnstable, a member of the three-team Old Colony League, in most sports. But Barnstable’s enrollment of 767 male and 809 female students is substantially higher than the Cape ACL schools.

Barnstable’s OCL opponents are Bridgewater-Raynham and Dartmouth, schools that the Cape’s ACL teams play in many sports.

“We had discussions with the OCL, and Taunton was in the league at the time,” says Falmouth Athletic Director Kathleen Burke. But Taunton went to the Hockomock and Dartmouth felt it wasn’t in their interest to make the trips this way [across the bridge].”

The ACL members also looked at the next level, the Cape & Islands League, but there is a large enrollment disparity between the large and small schools – D-Y being the smallest of the ACL schools with a total student body of 846 and, aside from Cape Tech (668), the other C&I schools have from 165 to 418 students, not a good match in most sports for the smaller schools.

“We’ll continue to look at working out something with the C&I schools,” says Burke, the dean of Cape Cod athletic directors. “And we’re continuing to look at other schools. It’s so fragmented – the Big 3 [Brockton, Durfee and New Bedford] and OCL with three teams each are not ideal from scheduling. And it’s tough for Marshfield being the only off-Cape school in the ACL; it’s good competition, but it’s a trip for them.”

Burke says that when she arrived at Falmouth in 1995, there were 10 schools in the OCL, including Weymouth and Quincy. But Falmouth’s enrollment has gone from 1,600 to its current 840, mostly due to Mashpee opening its high school.

Falmouth has its traditional rivalry with Barnstable in most sports and has picked up Mashpee and Sharon, a good non-league match-up with 1,163 students now competing in the 12-team Hockomock League.

Recently appointed Dennis-Yarmouth Athletic Director Paul Funk says, “I’m going to miss playing Plymouth [North and South] teams. We’ve had strong competitive battles. If you look at the league – it’s a Cape league with one off-Cape school, Marshfield.

“A five-team league makes it tough scheduling. You play everyone twice and have to go out and find another 12 games in non-football sports,” he said.

Dennis-Yarmouth will play Barnstable, Plymouth North and Scituate in non-ACL football games. “We were fortunate to keep North,” Funk said. “Barnstable’s a large school, but it’s a natural team to play because we’re right next door. The issue is with other sports; you can survive with five teams in football because you only have to find three; it’s harder in other sports.”

The Cape teams in the South Coast League [Bourne] and South Shore League [Mashpee and Monomoy] are happy where they are.

And the Cape & Islands League’s smaller schools – Cape Cod Academy, Cape Tech, Nantucket, Pope John Paul II and Sturgis East and West – seem at least for the time being to be a perfect match.

In football, D-Y traditionally plays Barnstable in addition to its four ACL opponents, which means it must schedule two other non-Cape teams. Next year, the Dolphins have picked up Scituate and retained its match-up with former ACL member Plymouth North. D-Y will open with Barnstable and play its other two non-league opponents before moving into ACL play.

Sandwich Athletic Director Neil Murphy says he isn’t sure where the ACL situation is going. “We’re in a good location geographically [at the west end of the Cape] to find opponents,” he said. “But we’re small nowadays; south of 800 [students].” When the new alignments were drawn up 2 ½ years ago, Sandwich had 980 students in grades 9-12.

Nauset Athletic Director Keith Kenyon concedes that it’s more difficult to find additional games, “But I can’t put a price tag on it. Plymouth North and South were long trips too; we’ll make it work.”